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itwbennett writes "Microsoft dropped a bomb yesterday: they won't be showing new hardware this year or 'anytime soon.' Microsoft told Kotaku that '2012 is all about Xbox 360.' Meanwhile, Bloomberg's mysterious sources are saying that Microsoft 'may show the successor to its Xbox 360 in June 2013 at the E3 conference and put it on sale that same year.' This would 'be a fast journey from announcement to launch,' says Peter Smith, 'but it'd mean we'd still get a new Xbox for holiday 2013, which is about the earliest anyone has expected it to arrive anyway.'"

Microsoft issues a press release to announce that they're not going to announce anything. And it makes the headlines of Slashdot. And I'm reading it on a Friday night. That's it, I'm off to drink beer, even if it isn't free.

Microsoft issues a press release to announce that they're not going to announce anything. And it makes the headlines of Slashdot. And I'm reading it on a Friday night. That's it, I'm off to drink beer, even if it isn't free.

Not only that, but it wasn't really expected to be there. Nintendo announced that the Wii U will be at this years E3, so every gaming publication seemed to bug Microsoft and Sony what they were going to do about it. They both, more or less said "nothing". Neither has any plans of releasing a next-gen console in the near future (i.e. this year).

This is just them reiterating the same point that everyone knew, there is nothing to show at this time.

There have been a number of industry experts/pundits in the last couple of months making public announcements that they have secret insider information that a new xbox would 100% guarenteed be at E3, MS needed to make an annoucement to put those idiots that like to make up such announcements back in there little box so people that are hanging out don't get such a huge disappointment when E3 rolls around. Expectation management.

A new console? are you kidding us? WE have idiots lined up buying this old turd, people that bought several units because of design flaws, and we are milking this for all it's worth. Hell we get people to pay us $60.00 a year to play online! Can you believe it? Come out with a new console... Yeah right!"

The next XBOX will be teased at this E3, but nothing concrete will be shown.It will be revealed in the Fall, probably through some shitty alternate reality game culminating in some MTV / other mass media "first look" at the console.

You'll then get a drip feed of information until E3 2013, which will be the big blowout and release date / pricing announcement.In Fall of 2013 you will be able to buy it. Pick from 3 different SKUs priced at $399 (base shit), $499 (more storage, comes with Kinect 2) , and $599 (even more storage, Kinect 2, fancy headset, stupid shit you don't care about, possibly more Live! Gold credit).

I highly doubt they will unveil plans for a new device before the holiday shopping season is over - otherwise a potential consumer might hold off on making a purchase until the new system is out. Chances are they will wait until the after major retail outlet return policy has expired before they make their next-next gen plans known...

I highly doubt they will unveil plans for a new device before the holiday shopping season is over - otherwise a potential consumer might hold off on making a purchase until the new system is out. Chances are they will wait until the after major retail outlet return policy has expired before they make their next-next gen plans known...

I think that depends on Nintendo. If they actually get a device out by xmas, MS would want to rain on their parade by "announcing" their next console, and saying how much better it is going to be and how many magic ponies it has.

There are throngs of retards that are buying their little children delicate, easy to break ipads at $500.00. and they are selling better than anything else. I think the $500.00 price point will work just fine.

All three models will come with Kinect 2. It would be stupid to split their market. A bigger question is will there be an optical drive? 16 GB flash memory will be even cheaper in eighteen months, and games could come on cards. The two more expensive models might still include an optical drive for playing 360 games and use as a media center.

No optical drive at all, download only, is certainly a likely possibility. Then again I've been buying all my PC games like that, so...

I really doubt it.

There are still many, many millions of people out there that are stuck on dial-up and I doubt any of the console developers would throw away that market. An individual game may require high speed internet, but an entire console? I doubt it.

More than likely it'll come with a Bluray drive in it. The only other thing I can possibly see would be them moving to some sort of flash memory medium, now that larger-sized flash drives are so cheap, but I think that they're way too paranoid about p

I pay for Live Points and Live subscription cards. Then I enter those into the system. Alternatively, you could enter your credit card number and dispute the charges as soon as they show up. If you gave them a debit card number that draws out of your bank account, well, you asked for it.

Indeed. Never use a debit card online for anything, ever. In fact, never use a debit card. Tell your bank that you do not want a debit card when you open a new account. Credit cards have legal protections, while debit cards are only a liability in comparison. The only time using a debit card makes any sense at all is when you have very bad credit, but the solution really isnt to use a debit card.. the solution is to fix your bad credit.

ATM cards are sort of the middle road where they do offer something th

Just because the lifespan is supposed to be around 10 years, doesn't mean the next generation has to wait until the console was out for that long. With most consoles, there have always been some overlap. the NES wasn't discontinued immediately after the SNES was released, it hung on for a few years (in the case of Japan...until 2003!). 3DS is out and the DS is still kicking. Hell, even the PS2 is still hanging on.

They can talk all they want about how long this cycle is going to last, but all they need is a

Two years on each, according to Wikipedia. While I can understand the Gamecube (seeing that the Wii is an enhanced GameCube), I believe Microsoft made the decision to cut their losses and double down on the 360. It was a shit move on their part, but it was probably the best move for them in the long run.

The 360 was released in 2005 and still going strong. If you bought one then and avoided RROD, you're still good to go. Meanwhile ipods from then have been thrown away, your computer from 2005 is a dinosaur that you keep to run Linux on, your cell phone from 2005 has been somewhere in the back of your closet since 2006, your TV from 2005 needs a digital tuner, your DVD player from 2005 won't play Blu-Ray...

My computer from 2005 had better stats then the 360, how is it a dinosaur but the xbox 360 is still relevant? The release of the 360 effectively halted all advancements in PC gaming technology, as modern cross platform development strategy dictates that any technology driven cutting edge features in cross platform titles need to be homogenized across the divergent systems they are designed to run on.

Your computer from 2005 has at best a Pentium D, the Core processors didn't come out until 2006. Even if you somehow have used a Pentium D for seven years and haven't gone broke paying your electric bill, it won't run most recent games, including Skyrim, Battlefield, and Modern Warfare 3 (it might run Mass Effect 3 at the lowest settings). So how is the 360 relevant and your computer not? Because it plays those games, and your computer doesn't.

Because developers suck? Sorry devs, but you do. You have been going "meh, throw more cycles and RAM at it" for years and years. Why in the fuck do even browsers have to suck so damned much memory? Hell everything now sucks so much more than they did in 06, that's why I have hung on so tightly to my copy of Office 2K, you can LO 3.x and Office 2K10 because they are both bloaty the whale compared to my beloved Office 2K which BTW STILL opens the latest Office files thanks to the compatibility pack. Hell the

Would it be a big deal for Sony to move w/ Freescale on the PPC, or alternately, look @ one of the MIPS CPUs, which they initially used in the first PlayStations? It would seem that at least that would give them an upgrade path

Yes. It's relevant because people still buy the 360 and it's popular and it's a consumer electronics device that has remained popular since 2005. In fact what is your point? Do you browse Slashdot just looking for every excuse to whine about how PC gaming isn't popular any more? You must be a hit at parties.

Nice ad hominems. Try actually addressing what the parent post had to say. His point wasn't that PC gaming isn't popular anymore. It is. His point was that lazy developers target the lowest common platform, which in the case of games is consoles and that a 2005 PC is still relevant because it can play most modern games and do all the other functions that 'modern' PC users do.

You mean, if you bought it and avoided the RRoD (which my friend just encountered after three years with his machine) *AND* avoided the E74 error (which I ran into several 360s ago) *AND* avoided the optical drives that fail and stop reading DVDs so you can't play games anymore (just happened to me for the second time), then you're still good to go. Assuming you also aren't tired of looking at increasingly tired graphics and goofy looking models of human beings that animate poorly (yes, PC PC PC -- but no matter how powerful my computer is, I don't want to play *all* my games hunched over a desk *all* the time).

I am currently on my fifth or sixth 360.

First one died after 100hrs of use (but those 100hrs took more than the year of warranty). The optical drive stopped reading discs. Not covered. This is a VERY common failure of 360s. Google it.

Second one died of an E74 error after almost no use over the period of a year or so. Not covered.

Third system stolen in a home invasion.

Fourth system just stopped turning on. Even with another power brick.

Fifth system just recently died of another failed optical drive. It would only recognize games about 25% of the time -- and when it would read the discs, it would make a horrible noise and also scratch the disc.

So, I'm personally on my sixth machine. My fifth due to Microsoft. And on top of that, I've bought a 360 for a family member, bought one for a friend, and bought another for a random person who was on hard times that I read about in a news paper that had all their shit stolen.

In this same time? My original PS3 is still kicking ass. So is my PS3 Slim. In fact, my PS2 and PS1 also work. So does my GameCube, N64, SNES, NES, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Game Gear, Lynx, Nomad, GameBoy, GBA, Atari Jaguar. In fact, all of my Atari's and my Odyssey II still work (Atari 2600 dating back to 1977).

why would you need to be hunched over? All you need for console style gaming now a days on a PC is an XBox controller and Steam.

I am moving my kids to Steam based game play. I buy a game for them once and I never have to worry about it again. Platformers are easy to play laying back, and in Windows 8, a TV setup will be super easy to implement with a Metro Games app to browse through.

Um, in Windows 7 a TV setup is super easy to implement as well. Also, Windows Vista. And Windows XP. Not sure about Windows ME and beyond because I was firmly in 100 pound CRT monitor territory in those days.

I've been PC gaming on my television since 2005 when I bought my first LCD HDTV. A few years later when the Xbox Wireless Receiver came out it was even better.

Complaints about the graphics on the 360 are nonsense. There are more and more detailed graphics for 360 games every year. It is a trade off of space for the graphics data versus the quality of the graphics.It's just a matter of how much time the devs put into it.

Different environments treat different consoles...differently. I have gone through 4 PS2s and 3 NES systems, while my original first-gen 360 is still running perfectly. I had a problem with my GameCube the first week I owned it and had to swap it for a new working one. I had a PS3 for about three weeks(full disclosure: it was used and I have no idea what was done to it in advance) before it turned into a George Foreman grill and never started again.

For me, the 360 has been the most rock-solid console I have ever owned, followed closely by the Dreamcast. The only problem I have actually had with the 360 is that one time a friend tripped over the console and it scratched a big ring into my disc. Fortunately, Best Buy had no qualms with replacing the game immediately.

I think we can safely say that this generation is going to be better towards the end. As the developers get more familiar with the hardware, we will see greater and greater games. Provided, of course, they don't just abandon it in preparation for the next next gen.:) Just like the good old days of the C64, we'll see much better work towards the end because the developers become extremely familiar with the ins and outs of the system.

And your experience with the 360 is definitely the exception, not the rule. My PS3 (20GB, upgraded to 500GB) has been the most rock solid console I've ever owned. Not only does it handle 6 hours straight playing Fallout 3, but it can handle 3 Blu-Ray movies in a row and not even hiccup (probably more, but I have to sleep sometime.) I can't say that about my 360, but I do enjoy playing my 360 slim (which they should've release YEARS ago, instead of cycling the old RRoD repaired 360s through the system...) It was a defective design, and Microsoft all but admitted it with their extending of the warranty, etc. (And the RRoD turning into an E74 error in subsequent board designs.) The decision to release a half-baked machine just to be first this generation was a gamble for Microsoft. They may have escaped the bulk of the problems with warranty repairs, etc, but they burned through a TON of good will doing so. We will only know if it was worth it when their next console comes out. (Remember the DVD on the original XBox was pretty shitty, prompting the "dirty disc" error fiasco.) So by the time they make a 720, I hope to hell they understand they cannot afford to release another 360-like hardware aberration.:)

I'm extremely happy for you that your launch 360 has still survived. There are very few people (besides the fanboys lying their asses off) who can say that.:)

The argument that 'the more time they put into it, the better it looks' is a logical fallacy. There are hugely diminishing returns trying to optimize hardware that is ancient. It's like trying to make a stone bleed. All you have to do is look at Rage, which is very recent, which tried VERY hard to optimize their game for consoles and to look good to see how little it accomplished. It looks just about as good graphically as UE3 that also ran on consoles a year after it came out.Graphics on modern consoles ar

For me, the 360 has been the most rock-solid console I have ever owned,

The Xbox360 was, at a certain point, the most failure-prone electronic device on the market, with a failure rate within a year of purchase, of over 51% and should be rightfully mentioned in the annals of poorly designed home electronics.

You actually bought all thse consoles? Had I had that experience, I'd have dumped XBox360 and stuck to PS3 and Nintendo. Does the XBox actually have many titles that ain't commonly found in either PlayStation or Nintendo?

You mean, if you bought it and avoided the RRoD (which my friend just encountered after three years with his machine) *AND* avoided the E74 error (which I ran into several 360s ago) *AND* avoided the optical drives that fail and stop reading DVDs so you can't play games anymore (just happened to me for the second time), then you're still good to go. Assuming you also aren't tired of looking at increasingly tired graphics and goofy looking models of human beings that animate poorly (yes, PC PC PC -- but no matter how powerful my computer is, I don't want to play *all* my games hunched over a desk *all* the time).

I am currently on my fifth or sixth 360.

First one died after 100hrs of use (but those 100hrs took more than the year of warranty). The optical drive stopped reading discs. Not covered. This is a VERY common failure of 360s. Google it.

Second one died of an E74 error after almost no use over the period of a year or so. Not covered.

Third system stolen in a home invasion.

Fourth system just stopped turning on. Even with another power brick.

Fifth system just recently died of another failed optical drive. It would only recognize games about 25% of the time -- and when it would read the discs, it would make a horrible noise and also scratch the disc.

So, I'm personally on my sixth machine. My fifth due to Microsoft. And on top of that, I've bought a 360 for a family member, bought one for a friend, and bought another for a random person who was on hard times that I read about in a news paper that had all their shit stolen.

In this same time? My original PS3 is still kicking ass. So is my PS3 Slim. In fact, my PS2 and PS1 also work. So does my GameCube, N64, SNES, NES, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, Game Gear, Lynx, Nomad, GameBoy, GBA, Atari Jaguar. In fact, all of my Atari's and my Odyssey II still work (Atari 2600 dating back to 1977).

But I'm on my sixth 360.

Yes, I'd post Anonymous also if i was admitting to something like buying 6 Xbox 360's and apparently still willing to buy more.

Dude, give it up, the "collection" you have amassed is not going to be any good because you will NOT find an xbox 360 that can still play the disks in 5 years, let alone 10...

Blowing into cartridges was how you broke them (condensation followed by corrosion). Proper cleaning is done with a match wrapped in some wool. Do that every once in a while instead of "blowing" and your NES/SNES will work for a very long time, barring motherboard corrosion or similar issues that you can't really help.

I'm personally on my sixth - fifth due to flaws (one was due to a home invasion, so that doesn't count -- although Microsoft certainly could have responded positively to my request to help track the console by serial number and IP since it was registered with them). I should note that my use of them is not in any way unusual (except that perhaps it is lighter use than most people). I go for months without touching my console and half of the failed ones died with less than 100hrs of utilization. They weren't mistreated or abused in any way (they sat on their own open-air shelf in the entertainment center next to the PS3 and every other device that has operated just fine).

It just seems to be the luck of the draw. Some people have no problems and some people have several. Especially people who bought the first iteration or two. Remember, the very first issue of the 360 is known to have fatal design flaws that WILL cause your console to die. If you have the first iteration of the console, it's just a matter of *WHEN*. That's why they extended the warranty on that one from one to three years. And the consoles that came after it didn't solve all the problems, either. They still encountered a variety of issues very widely.

Even today, there are tons of reports from people about the most recent kinect-oriented dashboard update flat out killing consoles that worked right before the upgrade and died immediately after it.

I also forgot to mention that my friend (who I bought an earlier version of the console for several years ago) just called me today to ask my advice on his console, which RRoD'd this week and won't operate anymore. Microsoft can repair it for about $110 and six weeks of time. He wanted my advice (other than to give up console gaming, get a PS3, or go straight-PC-only) as to whether he should get a new one or pay the repair costs.

He also doesn't abuse his. I'm in my mid thirties. He's just shy of 40. We're both professionals (he in media; myself in software development). I say this because the response from people who don't have problems with their console to those who do is often "well you broke it dumbass". Not a reasonable answer to design failures, of course.

I say this because the response from people who don't have problems with their console to those who do is often "well you broke it dumbass".

To be fair, I haven't met anyone in the last few years that didn't immediately assume that an Xbox 360 console failure wasn't because Microsoft builds shitty consoles.

In the beginning, perhaps, the fanboys would go apoplectic over people complaining about 360 failures, but I think by now most everyone knows that an xbox 360 console isn't so much bought as rented for a few years until it dies for no reason at all.

I'm personally on my third. Never got the RRoD, always had the DVD drives burn out and stop working. This is especially frustrating because it's just a standard DVD-ROM in the fucking thing, and I could replace it myself in a second, but Microsoft is a bunch of dickheads and every console is keyed to a particular model DVD drive (which has changed several times over the manufacturing cycle) that you can only get from them. There's methods out there for swapping out the drive controllers and all that shit to do it yourself, but it's all an incredible pain in the ass for something as stupidly simple to replace as an optical drive, and Microsoft wants 40% of the cost of a fucking entirely new console just to spend 15 minutes swapping a DVD-ROM? Give me a break...

That's at least one thing I give Sony kudos for as regards the PS3...you can go buy most any SATA hard drive and slap it into your PS3 with no problems whatsoever if you're looking to either upgrade or replace a burned out hdd. Seems kinda schizophrenic for a company that just cannot resist the temptation to make all their hardware use proprietary bullshit to lock people in but I suppose it's something.

People wonder why I stick to my PC for the majority of my gaming when the consoles are so much cheaper these days, but considering that it's cost me $500 for an Elite and $250 for the two vanilla replacements I've already spent almost as much on the damn consoles as I did on my last build and I can do a fuck of a lot more on this than I can on the consoles. I probably wouldn't have even replaced the console this last time if it wasn't for the 50+ games and the tons of accessories I have for the thing that would end up getting tossed or sold for $1 a piece to some kid at Gamestop...

It's not like nobody makes PC-exclusive games. The large majority of games for the PC aren't console ports. You could easily be a PC gamers and never play a single console port. It's just, the most popular, best-produced games are console ports. If you don't like them, don't play them.

The lack of PC games that are more popular than console ports seems to indicate either:1) Some sort of massive conspiracy where major corporation forego earning money, in order to piss off fanboys.2) Consoles ports actuall

The point stands: Then why are you even buying console ports in the first place? If PC technology is so much better and consoles/console ports are stuck in the past, one of the (great many) native PC games out there would be a better choice.

Believe it or not, some people actually like to tweak things beyond mashing the Ultra Button and calling it good. I generally spend the first hour or so I play any game just tweaking the settings and pushing them as high as I can before the FPS dips too low for my tastes (I'll sacrifice a little quality to get 60 fps over 30 fps on "ultra").

Of course, the number of PC games coming out that even have an appreciable graphics configuration is dwindling rapidly. Graphics options that consist of a slider that

A throwaway culture and an upgrade culture are two different things. iPods effectively have effectively not changed much between successive releases. At the core they still do what they did previously with the same quality and effect. The original iPod plays music just as well as the latest gen iPod. The only real departure was the iPod nanos and the iPod touch which effectively were a different product to suit a different need.

The XBOX360 on the other hand is now a clear sign of a stagnated product. Do you

But what about the PIRATES?!?! If it wasn't for them, every game would sell 10 million copies and game developers wouldn't need to focus on the console with it's built in DRM!!! It's all the pirates fault!!!!!!

The 360 was released in 2005 and still going strong. If you bought one then and avoided RROD, you're still good to go. Meanwhile ipods from then have been thrown away, your computer from 2005 is a dinosaur that you keep to run Linux on, your cell phone from 2005 has been somewhere in the back of your closet since 2006, your TV from 2005 needs a digital tuner, your DVD player from 2005 won't play Blu-Ray...

Yay, another bullshit console that's going to be obsolete and replaced by some other POS the year after that...

Really? You can say many things about consoles, but short lived is usually not one of them (for successful ones at least). If anything, IMO, this generation has worn out its welcome. Then again, I am primarily a PC gamer.

Yeah, but AAA titles aren't made for PS2 and then sloppily ported to everything else. PC games are still pretty much 360 games with keyboard and mouse support instead of games that take advantage of what DX 10 or 11 cards can do. When the next batch of consoles come out, maybe then I can get some real use out of my graphics card.

Insightful, really? Might as well have just posted 'Use Linux!" as that would have gotten a +5 I'm sure for the fanboi perception bubbles we have here. Hell i don't even own a console but how can anybody say the consoles are "going to be obsolete and replaced by some other POS the year after" when if anything its the VERY LONG LIFE of the current gen that has held back PC gaming? Not that I can blame Sony and MSFT as we ARE in a recession after all and MSFT is riding high this round so why should they rush? Plenty of people seem to be happy with their system, sales are good, if it ain't broke.

I don't know, maybe its just me, but when i look at games like Just Cause II and the Bioshock series and the FEAR series and HL 2 games I have to wonder if we are reaching the point that games like PCs are "good enough" and are becoming a case of diminishing returns on graphics. I mean there is only so much bling bling bullshit you can look at while dodging hellfire raining down on your ass, I know that in the above games never did i have an instance where the graphics took me out of the game and ultimately isn't that what matters? that there is enough suspension of disbelief we can just enjoy the experience? Frankly how many games have you played lately that THIS description would fit "Killer graphics but sucky game"? Personally I'd take Far Cry I or even No One Lives Forever II or Freelancer level graphics for a kick ass story, characters I care about, a good weapon system, great balance, and levels that are interesting. In a way i hope the X360 and PS3 last another couple of years as maybe, just maybe, if the devs can't just keep piling on bling they'll have to spend those resources elsewhere like on what i just mentioned. One can hope.

Insightful, really? Might as well have just posted 'Use Linux!" as that would have gotten a +5 I'm sure for the fanboi perception bubbles we have here

You still butthurt about that? Your entire rant about Linux strongly put you in the MS fanboi category.....

However, I do agree that consoles have done very little to hold back PC gaming. I think we hit diminishing returns some time ago. Not enough attention paid to plot and AI.

If anything, consoles could have been pushing PC gaming forward with their draconian DRM and complete disregard for the consumers. The rumored upcoming suport on the 720 to ban used game sales certainly put some fire on the Internets.

Of course, Sony needs no help looking like dicks to their consumers. No help at all. Quite frankly, their next console better come with a blowjob machine if they think they can win back the hearts and minds of the people they screwed over.

Neither MSFT or Sony is "riding high" this generation, they are both deep in multibillion dollar holes they are unlikely ever to get out of. MSFT more so than Sony, but MSFT had the money in the bank, Sony didn't.

You know, I don't want another overheating piece of underpowered garbage with a whining fan in my living room, from MSFT or Sony.

Uhhh...you DO realize that MSFT went into the black with the X360 more than 2 years ago, yes? And that other than advertising its been pretty much gravy ever since? or that MSFT is making a HELL of a lot more money off of the X360 than just the sales of consoles thanks to XBL and licenses? Finally I would point out that the Xbox is the one example i can think of where MSFT actually sat a goal and accomplished it with flying colors. what did Ballmer say with the release of the original Xbox? "We want the liv

1.) Spend more money on the more expensive solder technique. The proper names elude me but essentially stop using the cheap solder ball method that anybody worth a damn knows won't last and is meant for long-running/little-downtime designs (really great for servers, really bad for consoles).

OR

2.) Build a fan/Heatsink that can handle the heat.

There is a 3 and 4 but conceivably they involve redesigning the next gen CPU/GPU to require less power overall and would be into th

360 was pretty dumb as well, it puts you in the same place you started.

Yeah, its a terrible name. But what else would they have named it? Xbox 2? That would be really bad, because the general public would see the choice between "Xbox 2 or Playstation 3". They'd read it as, "3 > 2, why should I buy the system with the lower number, its obviously worse," and buy PS3 instead.

Actually, I think it's a very nice name. I hate Microsoft like sin itself, but the name "360" for it's "all-encompassing" game system is not that horrible.

I'm glad to hear about Sony's delays in bringing out a new console. I would be very happy to see the Sony brand name go the way of Packard Bell. As much as I can't stand Microsoft, Sony has a special place in Hell reserved for it in my view. But that's just the kind of hairpin I am. I'd be glad to see a wh

360 was pretty dumb as well, it puts you in the same place you started.

Yeah, its a terrible name. But what else would they have named it? Xbox 2? That would be really bad, because the general public would see the choice between "Xbox 2 or Playstation 3". They'd read it as, "3 > 2, why should I buy the system with the lower number, its obviously worse," and buy PS3 instead.

I agree consumers are stupid, but not as stupid as the corporations who think this shit up.

Never understood the naming problems we run into. Have to change naming, because using normal numbers confuses the customers. Using a number and a period, followed by more numbers really confuses customers, so can't do that either.

Seriously, look at Firefox version numbers. they had to change it.

Look at Nvidia/ATI's version numbers for their video cards. I guess they sort of follow a pattern, shit, it's easy t

I heard unverified rumors that Sony and Microsoft are in talks to combine the xbox 720 and ps4 into a single device. Not too far fetched considering that Sony Viao laptops come preinstalled with Microsoft Windows and can run games made by both Microsoft and Sony. I think this meshes well with the shift in focus Sony has made to transitioning the Playstation brand into a platform instead of a specific device. Just think... The Playstation Phone, Playstation Tablet, Playstation Laptop, and the Playstation PC,

Some video game genres work better on a device with physical buttons than on a device with just a completely flat touch screen. Apple won't run Nintendo out of business until it can beat the 3DS on these genres too.

The traditional lifespan for a console generation is 5 years. That's the gold standard going back to the Atari 2600 days. The Xbox 360 now represents the oldest console generation in history, at over 6 years and some change (beating out the PS2's 6 years even). If a new Xbox isn't released until the Fall of 2013, it will be *by far* the oldest console generation ever (at 8 years) since consoles began.

The traditional lifespan for a console generation is 5 years. That's the gold standard going back to the Atari 2600 days

Maybe, but at the time 5 years meant significant improvements in technology. New consoles had significantly faster processors, significantly more memory and visibly better graphics. With the current generation we're already fairly deep into the diminishing returns zone, and the process will continue, so I expect the interval between consecutive generations to grow longer and longer. It would be dificult to design a new console both reasonably priced and with major improvements over existing ones - we're alr

The 360 has graphics somewhere between the ATI 520 and 600 series, or comparable to a high-end NVidia 7000-series card or a midrange 8000 series, roughly what was in my laptop when the console was announced. My boring 15-inch Macbook from 3 years ago has a substantially stronger GPU. Current cards are more than 5 generations ahead.

It's embarrassing. Not as bad as the Wii, of course, but hacks can only take you so far. The bigger concern (at least for me) is that PC games more-or-less all run on consoles as

When you say "we're already at the limits of the resolution of television" I think you're missing that the vast majority of games are rendered below 1080P and then scaled, since the current consoles don't have the horsepower to actually render that resolution.

Speaking of which, someone should come up w/ a GPL3 game console. Take Debian or Arch Hurd, then add GNOME3 on top of it, and then on top of that, put as many GPL3 games, such as FreeCiv. Get RMS to write a whole bunch of new GPL3 games for this platform, and get based on it. Oh, and make sure the hardware is 'free' i.e. supports OpenBIOS, has fully documented design published and given to all its customers, if possible, even use a CPU like OpenRISC or Loongson. After it's complete, give it the misleadi